Climate Change Adaptation

The Urgent Need To Adapt To Climate Change

The latest international scientific assessment on climate change highlights that climate change is already threatening lives and livelihoods. Climate experts warn that these impacts will become more severe, pervasive and irreversible if action is not taken now to curb human-induced carbon emissions.

Helping people build resilience against and adapt to growing climate risks is an urgent priority. This is especially important for the most vulnerable people who lack adequate resources and capacities to manage the climate risks they face today.

The Most Vulnerable People Bear The Largest Brunt of Climate Change

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Poorer communities often live in the most shock-prone areas. When severe floods and droughts hit, they can destroy families’ homes, their crops and livelihoods. The worst affected are those that have little means to prepare for and recover from these events. In order to cope with climate shocks, food insecure households are often forced to sell the assets they depend upon to produce a living, to withdraw their children from school, or to reduce the meals they eat. Women and children are often most heavily affected.

Climate Change Could Lead To A 20 Percent Increase In Hunger By 2050

Studies from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Niger show increased wasting and stunting rates for children after a flood or drought have hit. In Niger for example, children born during a drought are more than twice as likely to be malnourished between the ages of one and two. It is estimated that by the year 2050 hunger and child malnutrition could increase by as much as 20 percent as a result of climate change.

In the last decade, almost half of WFP’s emergency and recovery operations helped food insecure people to recover from climate-related disasters, with a combined budget of US$23 billion. Photo:WFP/Rein Skullerud

WFP's Work On Climate Change Adaptation

WFP is on the front-line of response to climate disasters. WFP is involved in a number of initiatives that build on its experience, helping communities and governments adapt to climate change, and to build their longer-term resilience against future climate risks. We are working both to develop new innovative tools and to support large scale resilience building activities that address the challenge.